long to hear your voice (but still i make the choice)
by KatastrophicTodd
Summary: "He's not breathing," Jim says. Batman furrows his brow, not understanding the meaning of the words. Who isn't breathing? "Oh, God. What have you done?"


The rooftop is quiet, his own hard breathing is the only thing Batman can hear in that cold, unrepentant Gotham night. He feels his chest rising and falling, his teeth grinding, and a scream full of rage fighting to make its way out of his chest.

His knuckles burn from the fight and he feels blood on his mouth, making everything taste like copper. The lenses on his cowl would normally help him see everything better, but right now he can only feel distracted by the smoke covering the streets, the blue and red lights reflecting on it and making the grey cloud look like an impressionist painting for a moment.

Batman feels the cold set on his bones and stands still when he hears hurried steps climbing up the stairs to the roof. He relaxes when he sees a familiar trench coat emerge. Jim's expression is blank when he looks at him. Then, the commissioner looks at Batman's feet and something dangerous crosses the older man's eyes. Jim runs to him and Batman can only stare confusedly when the man kneels beside the figure on the ground.

Batman looks, he doesn't even remember why he didn't want to look, why he felt so angry and betrayed and hurt. He looks. He hears a sharp breath leave his mouth.

There in the ground, he recognises the man. The boy. He recognises the remaining pieces of the red helmet and the combat boots and the torn uniform. He recognises the features on the young face and the scar on the neck. He knows those wild locks of hair and that characteristic leather jacket.

He remembers why the body is there. He remembers watching Jason shoot the penguin, barely a day after Selina's letter. He remembers watching him knelt in the rooftop, his back to him.

Batman plays everything again in his head. The Red Hood had been talking, but Batman hadn't listened. He knew better than to listen to his sharp words and tainted logic. He knew better than to let him get to him. He knew better than to get his feelings involved.

Batman feels it again, the rage and hate when the Red Hood doesn't fight back. When he keeps talking and doesn't really pay attention to the fight. The rage when those teary eyes, those familiar eyes that call for something inside Batman, try to find his behind the lenses, behind the Bat. Batman was merciless and quick. As he should have been long ago. He had arrived to stop a criminal.

Batman looks again at the commissioner when he hears him talk to someone, his tone worried. He searches the rooftop, trying to decipher what is the threat but he sees nothing. He turns to ask Jim what's wrong and he is met with a terrified look.

"He's not breathing," Jim says.

Batman furrows his brow, not understanding the meaning of the words. _Who isn't breathing?_

"Oh, God. What have you _done_?"

He hears him choke on the words. He sees him press his ear to the body's bloodied chest and slowly, it starts to make sense. But Batman can't move now, his eyes trained on the young man at his feet while Jim frantically searches for a pulse. He feels like he's in the middle of a storm. He's shaking.

He's breathing too quickly, he knows. He wants to say something, try to explain. He knows it won't matter, nothing will. Not after what he's done.

He can't feel the connexion between him and what he's done. He can't feel anything.

"_No!_"

He hears the cry, he sees the arrow flying at him. He lets it tear through the muscles on his arm, he lets the pain be of some comfort.

Arsenal runs to them, he's crying. He's screaming. His soul wrenching cries make something inside Batman twist and think of that night in Ethiopia. When he cried for Robin's death. For Jason. For his _son_.

He takes a sharp breath and lets that wrong feeling grow inside him. He doesn't feel it when his knees give and he falls to the ground. He knows his lip is trembling and he is probably having a panic attack but that doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Not Arsenal shouting at him to get away from Jason, not the disgust in Jim's face, not the crackling sound of the comm in his ear.

He has only eyes for Jason. For his son.

Bruce thought he had been broken before, but nothing has ever felt like this pain, the dawning realization of what he's done. Of what he's _done_ to his son.

His whole world is ending right in front of his eyes and he knows he deserves it.

He watches the paramedics snatch his son away from him and he tries to follow, but Arsenal's fist collides with his jaw. And then another punch collides with his shoulder, where the arrow is buried in his flesh. He thinks the pain is right. He feels that's the only right thing he's felt tonight.

He sees Jim holding the boy back, he sees Arsenal cry and spit at him, trying to get free and beat Bruce. He wishes for the boy to do it, for someone to end this.

"It's not worth it, kid," his old friend says with grief.

The young man's shoulders sag and his cries grow louder and he latches onto Jim like his life depends on it. Bruce knows how he's feeling. He knows how it feels to break.

Bruce gathers himself and jumps off the building. Something else breaks inside him when he grabs the grappling gun and notices the bloodied piece of cloth still in his hand.

ᴥ

When he arrives at Leslie's clinic, his son has already flat-lined.

The old woman looks at him with tears running down her face and danger in her eyes.

"How _could_ you?" she spits. "You don't— you don't do that to a kid, Bruce." He doesn't react to his real name being spoken out loud. "You don't do that to _your_ kid."

She pushes at his chest with both hands, her gloves covered in Jason's blood. She doesn't even acknowledge the arrow still on Bruce's arm.

"Where is—?"

"He's _dead_," she screams.

She raises her hand to her mouth, stifling a sob. She stops when she sees the blood, shaking.

"Did you even know how hard you were beating him?" Her voice has gotten feral. "Did you even know how many ribs you were breaking? I— I couldn't stop the internal bleeding."

She leans on the wall, sliding to a crouched position on the floor. Her crying has only gotten worse.

"I should have called child services that night," she says softly.

Bruce knows which night she's talking about. Years ago, when Jason had only been a boy and he had almost died from a shot wound. When Bruce should have made him stop being Robin. Should have given him a normal and happy life. Back when he was still just Bruce, wearing whichever mask that suited him better each night. When he had still been a father.

"I need to see him," he talks through the lump in his throat.

A blade comes to his neck, cutting through the material and drawing blood.

"You won't do such thing," Talia says behind him.

He has never heard that tone in her voice. The real threat mixed up with the pain. She walks around him, keeping the edge of her sword at his throat.

"You take one more step and I'll slit your throat like you did his." She's crying, but stronger than Bruce has ever seen her before.

There's no emotion towards him in her eyes. But when he notices Leslie looking up at her words, he can only see hate in hers.

Both women share a look and nod at each other before Talia proceeds and enters the operating room. When she exits, Bruce hasn't moved.

Talia hands Leslie some signed papers and two assassins enter his son's room. Before he can complain, she's talking to him again.

"This won't go unpunished," she states. "The world will know what you are." She bares her teeth and gets closer. "And you won't see Damian again."

"You can't take him," Bruce feels the cold in his bones, not sure that what he's saying is true.

"I'm not going to," she answers, "Grayson has always been a better father than you."

Bruce can't say anything to that.

The assassins push the stretcher with Jason's dead body out of the room. His face, once full of life, is now covered in bruises. His lower lip and left eyebrow are split from Bruce's punches. His hair that would always curl up adorably is now pasted against his pale skin with sweat.

The scar in Jason's neck reminds Bruce that this is not the only time he has been a monster. But it's not until Bruce sees his chest, swollen up and stitched up from the intervention, that he breaks down completely.

This is his son, his little boy, and Bruce has beaten him to death. He vaguely remembers yelling how he shouldn't have believed in Jason just before his little boy told him he had never seen him hit someone that hard. And Bruce had been hidden so far into himself that he hadn't cared. He hadn't listened, he hadn't stopped.

Bruce remembers how mad he used to get whenever Jason shared stories about his childhood. About Willis. And now he had—

ᴥ

Talia leaves him there, horror on his face, eyes staring in the distance. She doesn't have anything else to tell him. Her men are quick and efficient, getting her boy on the jet. She made sure to bring one of the best doctors on the world when Leslie called.

She sees Alfred Pennyworth clutching his grandson's hand in his before climbing down the stairs. He knows what they did. He hands Talia Jason's copy of _Persuasion_ and a letter.

"Please, take care of him, Miss al Ghul," he begs. His voice is soft but firm. His eyes tell her everything she needs to know.

"You have my word." She squeezes the old man's shoulder before hurrying to the plane, where her doctor is sticking and IV on Jason's hand.

She will make sure Bruce pays. She is already working on the adoption papers for Grayson when the jet sets off. There's much to do to set things right, but for now she stays beside Jason, stroking his hair while she sings an old lullaby. Tomorrow, she will call the Amazon princess.


End file.
